Today, the rubber meets the truck stop
Oh, the joys of taking a new, comprehensive code for sustainable development and test-driving it — not with a small subdivision or gas station, but with a mega-truck stop unlike anything else in Santa Fe County.
That has been the reality facing Santa Fe County officials as they consider the proposal to build the Pilot Flying J truck stop just outside the city limits. A hearing officer gave a greenlight to the conceptual plan for the project; the Planning Commission unanimously rejected it.
On Tuesday, the Board of County Commissioners is hearing the proposal — commissioners could break the tie, voting either to approve the plan or to reject it. We have stated emphatically that this truck stop is not a good fit for Santa Fe County, with objections based on the contents of the Sustainable Land Development Code. Simply put, it is far from clear that truck stops are allowed under the new code in the Santa Fe Community College District, its proposed location.
However, one provision in the code deals with the parking required for truck stops. Local attorney Karl Sommer tried to argue for the Tennessee-based truck stop company at the Planning Commission that this mention of truck stop parking means that truck stops must be allowable uses, even inside the Community College District.
There’s a dispute, then, over the code and what it covers that will have to be settled. Opponents of the truck stop — including this newspaper — agree with Planning Commissioner Frank Katz.
He believes the omission of truck stops from the land-use code’s table of allowable uses indicates the intention to exclude them from the district. The people who wrote the code purposely left truck stops out as an allowable use within the Community College District, in Katz’s viewpoint.
If, however, truck stops don’t belong in the Community College District, there is a broader question the current iteration of the code does not appear to answer with certainty. Where, if anywhere, do truck stops — which do provide necessary services — belong in Santa Fe County?
County commissioners, when hearing the case Tuesday, will have to listen to testimony with the current code in mind to make sure it provides clear guidance. If the answer is unclear, the county might need to revert to one of our least favorite, but occasionally appropriate solutions, placing a moratorium on approval of truck stops while further study is done.
That would give county officials time to seek input from residents about where truck stops could be located; or, depending on the response, truck stops could be added to the list of Developments of Countywide Impact, proposals that merit additional scrutiny when going through the planning process.
The code already contains wording about potential developments of countywide impact, calling them ones that “have the potential to create serious adverse noise, light, odor and vibration, [and] traffic congestion.” Along with such projects as junkyards, feedlots, gravel mines or landfills, that seems to be a credible description of truck stops.
The use of a moratorium worked when a gravel mine on La Bajada Mesa was being proposed in Santa Fe County.
It could become the necessary stopgap solution here while Santa Fe wrestles with a broader question than just one truck stop. Sometimes, no decision can be the right decision.